The Chosen Path

I have, over 49 years, walked many paths.

And I have, over 49 years, left the path more than once to wander around, aimlessly, in the woods.  For the last few years, my feelings of being unfulfilled became more unsettling and my thoughts of how much time I had wasted were becoming more of a a quilt trip than any kind of motivation.

Last year, I had an epiphany! Well, it was an epiphany for me any way. I realized that, as long as I kept doing what I was doing, I was just going to keep feeling the way I was feeling. Now, understand, I have had that thought before. But, this time was different, because I didn’t just haul off and move somewhere new, get a new job, or dye my hair thinking that any of that was the way to “re-invent” myself. This time, I looked really hard at exactly was happening (and not happening) in my life and traced the causes back to the responsible party….yep, it was me. Imagine that. But, not any one thing. It was my ability to rationalize and excuse most anyone’s flaws and shortcomings except my own, of course, it was my looking at others for my self-worth, it was over-compensating for low self-esteem, and it was all the little, daily, habits that come with that mindset. It was those habits that formed the mortar for my fortress of chaos and denial. To begin with, I was eating for comfort and I was sleeping far too much for someone to ever be as tired as I always was. Those two factors combined to give me apt reason to avoid any real physical activity that would help my condition (see ABOUT section), no motivation to take care of my appearance, and no true feelings of self-love to inspire doing anything to feel better.

I was a tad shocked. Could it be that easy? If I attacked the foundation, can I bring down the fortress of misery with walls fortified by my repeated Kamikaze behavior?

Photo is not my creation and credited to Muriel Blanc, whose name appears on it, but whom I could not contact.

The answer was a resounding “YES”! Not as simple as that, but as simple as that. So, little by little, I am changing my diet and eating habits, through meditation I am learning to calm and focus the thoughts and feelings, I am using yoga to regain my physical abilities, I am using vitamins and supplements to replace medications and reinforce my diet, and I am learning to love myself, through the love of my family and a lot of help from people who have been in my shoes!

Now that I have a bit of sure footing under me, I am inviting you to share in my journey.

Chris